A sensor network (wireless sensor network (WSN)) is known which includes plural sensor-equipped wireless terminals (hereinafter, referred to as “sensor nodes”) that are disposed in an installation area and cooperate to gather information that indicates the external environment or a physical state.
An existing technique related to reducing the power consumption in an information processing apparatus is for example a technique that, stops power supply to a processor and peripheral circuits, and when an interrupt controller detects occurrence of an event starts power supply to the processor and the peripheral circuits (see, e.g., Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H10-333790). A technique also exists that, when reloading a kernel of an operating system (OS) into a main storage, excludes storage contents related to a non-stop module in the main storage, from objects to be reloaded (see, e.g., Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H11-024943).
The conventional techniques above, however, have a problem in that, in activating the processor triggered by the occurrence of an event, the startup period until the activation of the processor is completed becomes longer consequent to branch processing for executing processes according to the type of event that has occurred.